October 08, 2008

The Institute for Community Research is sponsoring "Ancestors: Day of the Dead Celebration." This will be a multi-media exhibit featuring 10 New England artists and is curated by Guatemalan Maestro Balam Soto of Hartford, CT. As readers of this blog may know, Balam Soto is an exceptional artist whose philosophy embraces a concept called modern thinking. "Information comes to us rapidly and through several channels. As a consequence, it expands our concepts, ideas and potential. Modern thinking is dynamic, upgradable and modular..." Artist Soto utilizes not only traditional media but is exploring and implementing the uses of technology as an art form.

An artist reception will be held
from 5 to 8 pm on October 24, 2008 and the show runs thru. Nov 21, 2008.

Gallery hours are 10 am to 5 pm on weekdays, during special weekend
events, or by appointment.The exhibit and opening reception are free
and open to the public.

April 05, 2008

The art industry has, in the past, been quite slow to jump aboard the Internet bandwagon. Once considering it too pedestrian, many museums and galleries are now embracing new media and are seeing the positive results of opening up their artistic arms to the greater public. Museums, galleries and artists alike are now all agreeing that a website is not a fad and is a major component in their business collateral. You will not likely find a museum that hasn't spent several thousands dollars on a website and online marketing/advertising. In doing so, these organizations are clearly finding the investment is justified.

Yet, there are many who simply resist participating in what can be a very valuable and powerful outreach tool. I must admit, I really don't understand this mindset. A recent conversation with a client once again causes me to reflect on what exactly is the value of new media in the art industry and how is it best harnessed to bring about a favorable ROI.

Now I could talk here until I'm blue in the face about all the benefits of new media for the art industry.... or any business for that matter. As a person who deals on a daily basis with artists, galleries and art organizations, I frequently find myself in the mist of conversation debating the value of online marketing. I could tell you that there are buyers and collectors of fine art that actually have "monthly Internet purchasing budgets." I could tell you that gallery directors regularly search the Internet for art news, exhibition reviews and art work. Museums not only are investing in websites but they are also taking innovative approaches at using the Internet to build their in-person attendance. Let's take a look at the facts and figures.

News24.com, published on article on March 28, 2008, Web Boost for Museums. The article talks about how museums are finding that sculpture and art once stored away, is now finding a new audience online. Now able to show these works on their websites, the museums are finding "that rather than diminishing the number of museum visits, the web is actually boosting in-person attendance."

Offering more than just information on museum hours and driving directions, these institutions are now seeing the beauty of providing their inventory to visitors who may never be able to actually get to the museum. The person in Connecticut can now access the wonderful works and resources of a museum in London....or Sydney... or Cleveland. A gallery in London can pursue the work of an artist in New York. News24.com reports via The Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, that Internet users actually go visit the museum 2.6 times more than those who don't. The ILMS further reports on Feb 28, 2008:

Libraries and museums are the most trusted sources of online information among adults of all ages, education levels, races, and ethnicities. Libraries and museums rank higher in trustworthiness than all other information sources including government, commercial, and private Web sites. The study shows that the public trust of museums and libraries migrates to the online environment.

The explosive growth of information available in the Information Age actually whets Americans appetite for more information. People search for information in many places and since the use of one source leads to others, museums, public libraries, and the Internet complement each other in this information-rich environment.

The Internet is not replacing in-person visits to libraries and museums and may actually increase onsite use of libraries and museums. There is a positive relationship between Internet use and in-person visits to museums and public libraries. In 2006 remote online access increased adult visits to museums by 75%.

But you can't just build a website and hope the people will come. You can't bemoan the value of the Internet if you are not willing to take the time and effort to build your online business collateral. It sounds strange but this wonderful online marketing tool known as your website or blog, must be marketed as well. Submitting your URL to third party sites, utilizing email campaigns, advertising your domain name and offering quality content is what will create a successful online presence. It takes time, money and creativity. This is a journey not a sprint.

Setting up and participating in a blog is a very effective way to drive Internet traffic to your website and thus increase sales and recognition. The effect of a blog is cumulative because the posts you create are published online immediately (via RSS) and stay online FORVER. Jim Spadaccini at Ideum reports that museum blogging is now mainstream. In a post dated October 18th, 2007, Jim discusses the findings he compiled for a conference at the Association of Science-Technology Center. His findings showed 211 blogs were listed in the Museums Blogs directory. By the time he returned from the conference he was surprised to find that 20 new museums had submitted to Museum Blogs. His findings were already (only 10 days later) quite dated.

While this article focuses mainly on Museums and the Internet, these findings should provide a basis for establishing the Value of the Internet in the Arts Industry. Artists and galleries should not only follow this lead but also apply the principals of online marketing and promotion to their own businesses. In December 2004, Pew Internet published a report "Artists, Musicians and The Internet." The report states that artists and musicians "have embraced the Internet as a tool that helps them create, promote, and sell their work." The report goes on to say "Artists and musicians on all points of the spectrum from superstars to starving singers have embraced the internet as a tool to improve how they make, market, and sell their creative works. They use the internet to gain inspiration, build community with fans and fellow artists, and pursue new commercial activity." Of those participating in the Pew report, 23% of all online artists and 41% of Paid Online Artists say the internet has helped them in their creative pursuits and careers.

It is my hope, that this post in some way encourages the art community to take better advantage of the Internet for marketing and promotion. It just seems to make perfect common sense to me. Additionally there are great resources for inspiration, creativity, learning, outreach and community. While I deeply understand that artists really just want to do what they are most compelled to do, create art, to simply dismiss the power of the Internet and its benefits to the arts would be a grave mistake.

At this time, Jim Spadaccini is requesting museum feedback on a survey he is conducting at Ideum. The folks at Ideum are in the process of writing their first National Science Foundation grant proposal to fund Open Exhibits, a project that will allow them to develop, test, and disseminate three open source software templates that will allow museum professionals’ to assemble electronic exhibits for the museum floor. If you are a museum professional, please take a few minutes to complete the survey — and please help spread the word about it. It will take about 20 minutes and Ideum will share the results with everyone who participates. They will also keep you updated about the status of Open Exhibits.

November 06, 2007

My friend, Eric Karjaluoto over at SmashLAB and ideasonideas wrote to me today announcing his new pet project MakeFive (honestly Eric... where do you find the time?) The site was launched yesterday and is based on a simple notion: share your opinions by ranking anything/everything and meet like minded individuals in the process.

After having browsed the new site I thought I'd post a little something here to give a bit of PR to the hard working folks at SmashLab but hmmm... how to I set a category for this post (or even multiple categories) without checking off everything from Art to Zebras? MakeFive has been created to accommodate nearly any subject you can imagine...including design related topics such as Most Influential designers of our time, Best design blogs, Best type families, Great books for entrepreneurs.

It can allow users to do so much:
- Learn about amazing new books
- Share their worst first-date experiences
- Opine on the most relevant news story of the year
- Document what things one wants to do before dying
- Find out about great restaurants they hadn't yet heard of

There is a lot of fun stuff here... one of my favorites is "What George W. Bush could do upon leaving office." My favorite answer : Take an English Class.

September 10, 2007

Artists beware: Email scammers are slick! This is not something we didn't already know, right? However, I want to alert you to an email I received this morning in several of my art email accounts. This type of thing is quite common on the Internet but I want to alert those of you who might be unfamiliar so you don't get involved with this. The title of the email reads "ARTWORK WANTED". The message goes on to say:

Hello Seller,
Good Day.. My name is Ade jo. I saw your artwork in the list address and am very much interested in buying your (artwork) I will like to know the actual amount of the art and i will prefer to pay with a cashier cheque/money order. And about the shipping I know a good shipping company that I am using that can come for the picking up ,kindly get back now with the price and if you have the picture send it to my mail box to see.Are you a private seller?Do you accept chasier cheque/money order as my method of payment? I will want you to email me back with your website and last offering price.
Best Regards

This email has all the hallmarks of a scam. The email expresses interest in your artwork and requests jpg's of the work and your price for selling. The sender says he prefers to pay with a cashier cheque or money order...sounds pretty good, doesn't it? He also says that he knows a good shipping company.

Ok...here is how this works. The guy (or gal) sends you money via an international check but he/she overpays you. When you notify him that he has overpaid, he'll request that you send the overage fees to the shipper to cover costs. This, of course, you'll agree to do but not before you find out the international check they have sent you is bad. Now you've paid money from YOUR ACCOUNT to the shipper. TA DA... you've lost money, allowed a scammer to know your banking information and you might have lost the painting or piece of art as well.

July 21, 2007

Let's begin with Daylite. I have to say the program is pretty great. It is designed (oddly) to work in the same manner in which I personally organize my information so I found I didn't have to change my way of thinking to match the program.

I created my first database and Daylite sync'd my contacts etc right into the program. I began by setting up the calendar and task lists. There are A LOT of categories in which to file your info so I deleted a lot of those and kept the categories that work for me. The interface and display was very helpful...by setting up a Project, and it's associated task list, it was extremely useful to be able to view "the next activity" listed for any given long range project. Kept me right on task. I knew what I was doing and what I had to do next. What a time/stress saver because I didn't have to keep this info in my head anymore and I could truly focus on the task at hand.

I also LOVED what Daylite calls "The Pipeline" which is a series of stages needed to progress through a project until its completion. Because I deal with a lot of email correspondence from clients, I also appreciated the fact that I could sync my contacts/emails to a project in Daylite. Sooo... when I boot up a project in Daylite all my info is there. I can see the emails associated with the project, the contacts involved, and the series of tasks needed to be done.

Daylite also provides the ability to track "Opportunities" which I also found to be a nice surprise. As you get requests from potential clients you can add those for followup and progress....very nice! Daylite interfaces with Billings which is the next program I'll be reviewing to keep my accounting paperwork organized.

Now for the crappy part. Originally I found Daylite via Missing Sync. I had just purchased my first Blackberry and the ability to sync my daily management program with my Blackberry is KEY! At the Missing Sync website I read that Missing Sync is compatible with Daylite. Which indeed, I guess, it is...or could be. I don't know I must have misread the info. The problem is...Daylite is NOT compatible with Missing Sync. So despite the two weeks I've spent falling in love with Daylite... I will not purchase the program until I can sync (without having to jump thru hoops) with my Blackberry.

Additional info: I very much liked the little work timer that came with Daylite. With that timer I could begin a project, start the timer and actually have a accounting of the REAL time I was spending working for any given project/client. Daylite records those minutes/hours for later reference. Regardless of my decision to not purchase Daylite until synchronization is supposed with my Blackberry...I need the timer! I went in search of finding the stand alone application for Work Timer. Here is the freeware download for Work Timer 2.04 at Apple.

All in all I can say that Daylite would be an extremely good self management system for designers running their own shops or artists who want to manage their business and tasks. There are a host of features that I really can't get into here at ArtLOOK because I'm not writing a manual, but here is the link for Daylite's features. As for me, well... I love the gadgets and require certain beloved pieces of software to keep my business in check. But when it comes to "brain dumping" and sketching out ideas... I'll never give up my Moleskine.

Missing Sync:Mark/Space's Missing Sync is a synchronization application for MAC and your handheld device. I chose Missing Sync instead of the free PocketMac, which I heard had some issues. Supporting Windows Mobile, Palm OS etc, my interest was in Blackberry. I purchased Missing Sync for under $40 and I can report it works pretty well, and as advertised, with the exception of the whole Daylite compatibility issue. It transferred my contacts and my calendar very nicely. And it has the capability to also transfer selected photos and music from Iphoto and Itunes. Photos taken with the Blackberry can also be transferred very easily over to your computer. Being that I have an Ipod I don't use the music transfer for my Blackberry but another nice feature is the Notebook that is bundled along with Missing Sync. Notebook allows you to create, edit, categorize and sort notes on your MAC (or handheld) and then sync them. Missing Sync is made by people who love MAC and the interface is quite nice, easy to use and best of all...IT WORKS!

June 28, 2007

Dave Gilly Gilstein and Renee O'Gara are lovely. Talented in their own right as artists, designers and photographers, their Rhode Island gallery reflects their fine eye for art that embraces abstract work, landscape, seascape and photography. This summer will see several openings and exhibits at the gallery. Artists include David k. Anderson, Jeanne Tangney, Antonia Tyz Peeples, Burl
Dawson, H. Gray park IV, Joseph Keiffer.

June 27, 2007

Things have been getting hectic in the office and despite my ever present Filofax I'm finding it a bit of a challenge to keep track of all the "goings on." I'm thrilled that my business is healthy and the list of happy clients is growing and so to keep the business vibrant, I've been thinking lately about getting a personal assistant. And not just for my business...but for my life.

This morning I read with delight about The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss (found via 43 Folders). Honestly, you have to read the excerpt from "Outsourcing Life"... I couldn't stop myself from smiling and exclaiming "Hey I want that too!" I was tempted to immediately put Tim's new book into my shopping cart at Amazon, but then thought better of it...why not just go out to the bookstore and buy that book RIGHT NOW? Yeah...well once the phones started ringing, and the deadlines started popping and the emails started coming in...I completely forget about the book until now. (Thus a perfect example of the need for a personal assistant...I can't even get to the bookstore to buy the book to help me help myself, for heaven's sakes!)

A few weeks ago I bought my first Blackberry. It took the sales dude an hour to talk me into the purchase. Now that I have this sweet little phone (yeah yeah...it's not a IPhone but I'll never switch over to AT&T) I can't imagine how on earth I got along without it. Of course now, the purchase of a shiny new gadget requires...hoho...time to learn about the new device and the software to sync the device to my MAC. Fine. I did a bit of research and because all my stuff is on my MAC I needed something that would sync the phone to the MAC OS without duplicating contacts or messing up my carefully culled calendar entries. After reading some reviews on PocketMac (see...another thing my personal assistant could have helped with) I settled on downloading Missing Sync. It worked very well, didn't mess up any of my contacts or calendars and I'm pretty much pleased with it. But gosh, if I could only do more with the emails and calendar to organize them and link them to the associated projects that would be great. I have many projects and often each project has quite a time line of tasks that need to be completed and several people to be contacted along the way. The trick is getting each application to sync with the other and then sync to my Blackberry.

Somewhere I read about Market Circle's Daylite and once again via Missing Sync I was reminded of that program. I absolutely hate Microsoft's Entourage and the calendar on my MAC hard drive doesn't do all I want it too. I don't want to access all my info from a web server so BaseCamp is not a option for me. Could Daylite be the personal assistant I am searching for? Or even better...could Daylite be of assistance to my personal assistant? Today I downloaded Daylite Productivity Suite. I've so far synchronized my calendar and contact list with the program and am now going thru. the stages of learning *sigh* the new program. I'm still convinced that an actual 3 dimensional personal assistant is someone I'd like to get to know better but until then my hope is that by putting everything in order I might make better use of my time. As I discover Daylite I'll keep you posted on the pros and cons. I'm also looking to a billing and invoicing program to make nice with my filing system (which presently consists of a box). How do you manage your daily activities?

June 04, 2007

On May 31, 2007, Robert Alan Soloway was arrested and charged with mail fraud, wire fraud, email fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. He is described as one of the world's most prolific spammers...One of the top ten in the world, in fact. The feds said computer users would notice a decrease in spam and indeed they are correct. Since Soloway's arrest I've noticed a significant decrease in the spam coming into my inbox. I applaud this. Have you noticed a difference in the amount of spam in your email accounts? What say you?

Select Sites I've Built

Nice Things People Say

"I believe the success of your INK article is your ability to listen, intellectually collaborate and to make difficult ideas understandable to the public."
- Gilbert Boro, Sculptor

"I am very impressed with the work Lisa has done for us in this short time. She has a light touch, very appealing and attractive, plus real style."
- Audrey Heard, Art On Groton Bank

"I was just handed the most incredible magazine article that I think has ever been written about me. It is just fantastic and people are presenting me with copies of the magazine. Really beautifully written, really beautifully written and no one has ever put all the pieces together as nicely as you have. Thank you so much."
- David Black

"Ok, Don't stand in a doorway when you read this as you
may become hopelessly lodged... Hang on to your head,
an ego boost attached...
I love it Lisa. Spot on nicely done,
access-able, significant and of a standard. I'm stoked,
can't thank you enough, very happy and impressed."
- Jeff Lilly : INK Publishing

"The Art and Design is written in a easy manner, centred on the design community, and points to discussions I can use...It’s my kind of blog as it keeps on giving."
- Designers Who Blog

"I enjoy your writing and will be checking back with ArtLOOK to keep up what you come up with next. I so envy those who can write well."
- Cat Wentworth

"I am glad you are a perfectionist-
You have given us a world-class site that will be an asset to The Guide as we move forward and expand."
- Matt Holmes, The Art Guide

"I found Lisa Mikulski to be just the right resource at the right time: focused, professional, with a great eye for color and design, and with very fast turnaround time for getting images up on the web -- an artist's best friend and there when you need her! She's got a really good command of the two worlds we as artists now inhabit: the technical issues of cyberspace in today's market, combined with bottom line issues of artistic judgement. I highly recommend her as a great resource for web design, artistic and gallery management."
- Julia Rogoff, Artist